Forced Conversion

by Donald J. Bingle

  The General paused, waiting for someone to impress him, but no one did. Not his senior staff, not the cocky young Lieutenant, and certainly not his aide. He spelled it out. “If you had the most secure geological site possible and if the rest of the remaining population on earth was scared to death to go there because they thought it was full of glowing, radioactive garbage, where would you hide the computers you never wanted anybody to find and never wanted to let the elements destroy?”

  Fontana’s aide let out a soft, low whistle until everyone glared at him and the underling shut himself up. Fontana continued.

  “Billions of souls are in limbo in Yucca Mountain. I believe that to be the truth of the situation. And, with God’s help, we shall set the people free.”

  Chapter 20

  With the astronomers’ help, Derek could set Maria free now. She could go safely on her way. He could teach Ali to use the conversion scanner by converting Hank. Derek would call in with the bogus story about the motorcycle gang, but add that he had with him a ConFoe recruit who was aiding him. Ali could shoot Derek (he hoped the guy could shoot) and start to convert Derek almost immediately. While the scanner ran, Ali could wash up and change clothes (no powder residue, just in case the ConFoes investigated the shooting) and wait for the ConFoes to arrive. The ConFoes would have a new recruit, already with some scanning experience, who had acted to save Derek. And, if the scanning was shown to be premature, well, the guy was just a recruit. They could hardly blame him for instituting the scan prematurely.

  There was still some risk, but this plan was better. Certainly less of the risk was on Maria this way. Still, Ali puzzled him. If the ConFoes were about to win, wouldn’t he be converted soon anyway?

  Ali and Maria were greeted with a cornucopia of freeze-dried foodstuffs for breakfast. “No need to skimp,” declared Hank. “Ain’t gonna be here much longer.”

  Derek would have been content to ignore Ali’s invitation from the night before to continue their discussion about why his desire to become a Converter made sense. It was enough that the fellow’s desire helped with Derek’s plan. Probing too much could disrupt that. But Maria had obviously been thinking about it; Ali’s desire offended her in the most basic way and she knew that a religious response would be ineffective in dissuading him. She had to understand the logic.

  Over a mouthful of reconstituted apple crunch cake, she suddenly blurted out in discovery: “Decreasing pool of recruits.”

  “Huh?” said Derek. He wasn’t his best first thing in the morning.

  Maria turned to Ali. “Because so many people are converted and most ConFoe’s tours of duty are approaching their end, you think that there will be relatively long-term positions for Converters, because hardly anyone will re-up; they’ll choose to convert instead—and there aren’t many people left to recruit from.” She waved her fork in triumph.

  “Yes and, well, no,” said Ali. “Certainly there are fewer people to recruit. And certainly many current recruits will chose to convert at the end of their tours. Logically, at some point, there won’t be anyone left to recruit and no one willing to re-up.”

  “So, by then, we’ve accomplished our goal and everyone converts and lives happily ever after,” Derek said, pressing to wrap up the discussion as he shoveled in a generous portion of reconstituted scrambled eggs, liberally laced with ground pepper and hot sauce. He stopped suddenly. “I mean that that’s what the ConFoes would say.”

  Hank’s right hand fluttered in the air in a dismissive gesture. “Hell, no need to keep up the pretence. Thought you might be a ConFoe last night.” He reached under his chair and pulled out Derek’s old uniform. “Searching the back of the truck confirmed things.” He glanced over to Maria, whose eyes expressed concern more than surprise. “I see the lady knew.”

  Derek stopped eating for a moment, uncertain of what was next to come, but Hank just tucked the uniform back under his chair and picked up a slice of ersatz bacon. “Our cards are on the table. You being a ConFoe works just fine for what we want. The only issue is if Maria is forced to do something she doesn’t want to do.”

  “No, the plan was for her to go her separate way soon anyway.”

  Hank nodded in brief acknowledgement. “Then everything’s copasetic.”

  Maria’s brow furrowed in puzzlement.

  “Excellent, in good order,” Ali explained.

  “No,” replied Maria. “I understood the expression. It was just . . . I mean our discussion earlier . . . they could never be sure, could they? They would always need to keep someone around.”

  “Huh?” said Derek. He really wasn’t sharp in the morning.

  “Maria is quite correct. They would always need someone around.”

  “I mean, we have . . . hidden . . . for years and years without detection,” Maria explained to Derek. “Even if the ConFoes thought they had gotten everyone, they would have to leave someone to be on the lookout for stragglers, hermits squirreled away in odd places, or dedicated sects hidden in remote locations. The ConFoes have to remain alert indefinitely.”

  “The only other possibility,” speculated Ali, “is that they have some sort of doomsday device—a series of precisely coordinated nuclear explosions that could be triggered to occur far from the site of the virtual world computers. These detonations could be configured to blanket the earth with enough particulate matter to block out sunlight completely in order to wipe out the ability of plants to photosynthesize and kill whoever’s left.”

  Hank put down his fork long enough to snort gently. “Hell, Ali, don’t go back to that old theory. There’s just no point to a doomsday device you don’t tell anybody about. It doesn’t serve as a deterrent to anything that way. And if it’s not a deterrent and, instead, just a way of killing everybody that’s left, why the hell haven’t they used it yet?”

  Ali shrugged. It was clear to Derek that the two scientists had been through this debate before. “Maybe nobody has the balls to press the button. Maybe they want to reduce the population first to maximize the possibility that no one escapes. Perhaps it is not a deterrent; perhaps it is just a way to eliminate whoever or whatever gets close to the computers when they do get close, whether by accident or design, decades or even millennia from now.”

  “Yeah, that protection from little green men theory is your strongest shot.”

  Suddenly Maria sounded concerned. “You mean you think there is a real possibility of a device that kills off the planet if the location of the computers is attacked?”

  Ali shrugged again. “It makes sense. I would do it that way. But we are getting off the proper track of our analysis. Regardless of whether such a device exists, the ConFoes have a long-term need for personnel—a longer than lifetime need for personnel.”

  “What, you mean you think they breed their replacement recruits in some secret laboratory or something?” Derek asked.

  Ali wrinkled his nose slightly, but was too polite to verbalize his true thoughts about such a theory. “Possibly,” he said instead, “but that has many complications and uncertainties. Why not just use the recruits they have?”

  Now Derek was concerned. “You mean they’ll never let me out?” An infinity of ConFoe service was more than he could fathom.

  “More like they will keep you in reserve.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Well,” theorized Ali, “maybe a consciousness could be implanted back into a synthetic body or a robotic device that can accept a converted mind. When the time comes that ConFoes are needed, they are simply downloaded into the bodies or the robots and sent out to do what needs to be done to fight whoever or whatever may threaten the virtual worlds whenever that might be.”

  Derek was relieved. “So you’re saying I might get called up from my virtual life in some distant future?”

  Ali frowned. “Well, yes, except that you would not be much of a soldier after millennia of relaxation and soft-living. Reserve forces would be better soldiers if the converted personalitie
s were kept in a training world, running simulations, keeping their wits and their edge by facing different foes and different situations.”

  “But wouldn’t they get weary and burn out over time?” asked Maria.

  “I sure would,” said Hank. “But they would only get burnt out if they perceive the millennia of training. The same personality can get reinserted multiple times into a training world and, with a little editing here and there, could be fooled into not recognizing the amount of time that has actually gone by. The Generals, hell, probably the damn computers, assess the effectiveness of various tactics in various scenarios so they know which commands to give should that scenario ever occur. The poor grunts, they just get downloaded into one scenario after another and never even know they’ve been at it forever.” Hank’s eyes crinkled in obvious happiness to be theorizing on a new subject, or at least with new counterparts, for a change, and his voice boomed as he warmed to the lecture. “And one day, one day, they may just be released into the real world again. As long as you’re happy in your job, then being a ConFoe is the only way to have a shot at coming back to the real world, ever.”

  “I don’t know,” murmured Maria. “Computers are fast, but they’re not really creative. Wouldn’t the training scenarios be obvious and unrealistic? I can’t believe that they could fool anyone of any intelligence.”

  Hank looked at Ali and Ali smiled. “Intelligence isn’t what most military outfits are looking for in a soldier. Besides, if they did fool someone, how would that person, by definition, ever know?” growled the older man.

  Ali gave Hank a look like that given to misbehaving children and waved off his remark. “Pay no attention to him. He’s just trying to scare you. But you are right about the lack of creative artificial intelligence, even in the fastest computers. That’s why, if I was doing it, I would capture mals while they slept or were unconscious.”

  “Unconscious?” murmured Maria, a frightened look on her face.

  “Yes, an unconscious mal would be optimal,” responded Ali glibly. “That way you could convert them, without ever revealing to them that they were converted, and insert them into the training programs to do whatever they might do in the real world. That would generate some random creative input that the computer cannot generate of its own accord. The mals would just wake up and never know they were in their enemy’s training scenario.”

  Derek dropped his fork on the floor with a clang. “They’d never know they were in a dream . . .” He felt an ominous presence in the room. He tried to move, but couldn’t. “It would look real, just like it looked when they fell asleep . . .”

  * * * * *

  Maria joined in Derek’s mutterings, “. . . but when you thought about it later there would be clues, there would be things that just didn’t seem right . . .” Her eyes flashed from side to side as her mind raced back to Greco and the house in which she had been tortured and held captive. She had always assumed the battle that had allowed her to escape Greco’s foul clutches had been with a rival gang or, perhaps, the Believers. But now, just now, she realized with a shiver that all the sounds had been indistinct, the words muffled by the dull bark of the weapons fire; she couldn’t know that the battle had not been with ConFoe forces. Her nightmare was more than she had ever imagined.

  * * * * *

  Derek’s own nightmare was crashing down upon him. He broke out into a sweat as he continued murmuring to himself, “And if they did know they were dreaming, there’s nothing they could do about it.” He was frozen in place in terror—he could not force himself to move, to save himself, to wake into another world he could never be sure was real.

  * * * * *

  The train, dubbed the Limbo Liberation Express by the chaplain at its blessing before departure, chugged south and west, toward Yucca Mountain, at good speed. The history of the nuclear waste depository suggested that there would be a spur track off of the main line straight into the face of the mountain. The Plan was to disembark some miles short of their goal and unload their armaments, then send the train, along with two boxcars full of fertilizer-based explosives, chugging straight into the face of the mountain as their first salvo in the final battle.

  It never occurred to Fontana, to any of the Believers, that doing so might trigger a Doomsday Device that would end all biological life on earth. Decent, God-fearing people just didn’t think like that.

  General Fontana smiled, the wind rushing through his hair as the train raced toward its destiny. Right or wrong, nothing could stop the Plan now.

  Yucca Mountain was in sight.

  * * * * *

  Deep inside a secure facility, two techs monitored the situation.. One leaned forward to push a button, but the other stopped him.

  “Hell, let’s see what they do. We’ve let ‘em come this far.”

  The first tech shrugged and then both techs leaned back into their ergonomically engineered chairs and continued watching.

  * * * * *

  They were three miles out when they saw the first bones. They were two miles out when they saw the first signs.

  The bones were bleached bare by the sand and the sun, scattered recklessly by scavengers before the bleaching had yet begun. Most were human, but there were some horses and indigenous animals, too. At first there were a few, but they increased steadily as the train approached Yucca Mountain. Soon, they were too numerous to count and Gerdemann slowed the train, halting it when he reached the first sign.

  “DANGER!!!” it read, “YUCCA MOUNTAIN NUCLEAR WASTE DEPOSITORY. EXTREME RADIATION HAZARD. ENTRY PROHIBITED. PROCEEDING BEYOND THIS POINT WILL RESULT IN USE OF LETHAL FORCE, RESULTING IN SEVERE INJURY OR DEATH. NO TRESPASSING.” A second sign nearby made the same points with the use of pictographs of a dying man and a radiation hazard symbol. A third sign in the distance warned vaguely of “automatic weapons systems.”

  Fontana scanned the area ahead with his binoculars, while Gerdemann fussed superficially with the boiler controls.

  “What do you think, Gus?” asked the General.

  Gerdemann stopped what he was doing. “Is this intended to scare me away?”

  “Yep.”

  “It’s working.”

  “Sticks and stones . . . but words shall never hurt me.” The General nodded in the direction of the mountain. “Could be a great camouflage effort, maybe there’s mines, but I don’t see anything but a few small outbuildings and the entrance to the mountain ahead. No troops, no tanks, no artillery. Nobody’s on guard.”

  “What about the bodies?”

  “Dumped there to scare us, maybe. The bodies of mals or even volunteers who have been converted.”

  Gerdemann reached over and grabbed his makeshift Geiger counter, switching it on and pointing it out the side of the cab towards the ground. It made more clacks than an infinite number of monkeys hacking away at an infinite number of typewriters.

  The trainman lunged at the controls, throwing the behemoth into reverse. “Damn, it’s hot here, sir.”

  The realization hit the General like the shock wave of a concussion grenade. The bastards, he knew, had irradiated the cities. Why wouldn’t they irradiate the area surrounding their computers? Yucca Mountain was designed to be impervious to high-level radiation. It could hold it in for countless millennia. There was no reason it couldn’t hold it out, keeping the vile computers safe, while anyone who approached would die.

  Worse yet. The men were already showing signs of radiation sickness from the trek through Denver. Now they had been dosed again. He had led the entire Army of the Believers on a suicide mission, but there was no one to fight. Their enemy was inert, inanimate, unmovable, and lethal.

  By the time the train had backed off a couple miles, however, Fontana had made his decision. Faith had brought them this far. He would not waver. The mountain would not come to them; they must go to the mountain. They would go forward with the Plan. They had almost no hope of freeing the souls trapped in Yucca Mountain, and they would all most likely die tryi
ng, but better to die for what they believed in, than to retreat. If they left now, they would not only suffer a crisis of faith, they would be picked off by ConFoes and converted as they lay weak and helpless from the radiation. Then their souls would be lost as well as their cause.

  The soldiers disembarked and formed into platoons. Fontana did not tell them about the radiation they faced. There was no reason to dampen their spirit or undermine their faith by shoving the grim odds in their hopeful faces. Everyone who went to Vegas thought that they would be a winner. These soldiers were no different, except that they did not believe they played a game of chance. Victory was sure.

  The demolition team readied the explosives on the train for its charge into the mountain. It didn’t take long. Soon the train headed in toward the thick vault door that closed off the interior of Yucca Mountain from the real world. Gerdemann rode the Limbo Liberation Express alone, with no stops, coaxing every ounce of speed he could muster from the old iron beast straight through to the final destination.

  Less than a hundred yards out from the door, the explosives triggered. The door, of course, had been configured to deflect and withstand sizeable explosions. What no one had contemplated, however, was that a giant locomotive would be propelled by a massive fuel oil and fertilizer explosion into the door—a six-hundred-thirty-four-thousand-pound cast iron piston slamming into the center of the reinforced steel and titanium door like the Right Hand of God and ringing it like the Bell of the Freedom. No. 5629 had completed her final run and she had delivered her biggest payload ever.

  Two miles away, the Army of the Believers cheered and surged forward as the explosion rocketed the train into Yucca Mountain—an army of ants attacking a huge, granite boulder. It was, Fontana knew, heroic and noble and completely fruitless, but all of that didn’t matter. It was a march of faith.

  * * * * *

  The two watchmen gazed at the tableau in bewildered amazement. They had only seen such a foolhardy display of faith once before. But their silent awe was interrupted by the blare of an automatic alarm.